Leaders of International AIDS Empowerment have been serving the HIV positive and AIDS community for many years.

But thanks to a $50,000 donation from the Elton John AIDS Foundation, the organization has opened the OUTright Center, which will allow it to better serve the area's gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community in a spacious location on West Yandell.

The gift will help the organization expand its services beyond the HIV/AIDS community and a food pantry.

The center will have a pharmacy and doctor's space to see patients, a fitness room, a GLBT library and social activities geared toward gay youth. Desert View United Church of Christ also will have services on Sundays at the center.

"Probably the most important thing we can do is create a community. Think about it, no matter who they are, people need a community and a community is family," said Skip Rosenthal, executive director of International AIDS Empowerment.

The International AIDS Empowerment has been offering testing and other social services for the HIV/AIDS community since 1997. Those services include housing opportunities for people with AIDS.

"We help people with permanent housing. Every single month, we pay rent and utilities for 60 people. We also have a temporary emergency financial assistance program," Rosenthal said.

The organization also has the PAWS (Pets Are Wonderful Support) program, which pays for a pet adoption and helps HIV/AIDS clients with pet needs, such as food and grooming.

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James Baily, director of the program, said many of the clients don't have family or friends and their adopted pets really helps them feel loved.

"The pets really help with their well being," Baily said. "They have someone to love them and pets don't talk back."

Rosenthal is excited the organization can now provide more services to the entire gay community. He estimates the center serves more than 650 people, including Las Cruces.

"People have lots of different issues ... and health is usually the smallest part. It's surviving - it's being stable, eating, having family. If we can help them stabilize those issues then they can get their health stable as well," Rosenthal said.

The building, which has two floors, will have plenty of space to gut out a small kitchen and create a space for two exam rooms. Rosenthal is working with two medical residents from Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center who are interested in seeing patients at the center.

"Right now, we don't really have any health-related services especially for our transgender community who are taking hormones," he said. "How do these hormones affect other health issues? We also don't have a place where young gays can get tested for sexually transmitted diseases appropriately and that doesn't cost anything."

Ultimately, Rosenthal is hoping to create a comfortable place for the GLBT community as well as have visibility in the El Paso community.

"The lack of visibility is our number one enemy," he said. "There have been studies that asked people whether they were supportive of GLBT issues. Of those who said they supported, 80 percent knew someone who was GLBT. Those who weren't supportive were almost 80 percent that didn't know anybody who was GLBT."

Rosenthal said a study released by UCLA and the Gallup organization a year ago revealed that about three percent of people in Texas identify themselves as gay, lesbian, transexual or transgender.

"In El Paso, that comes to about 27,000 people," he said.

Jess Weinberg, a female to male transgender, said he has lived in bigger cities that have gay centers and said it is great El Paso will have its own.

"A GLBT center - whether it's a physical center or a group that meets sometimes — it's a chance to connect with people who even if they don't share your identification exactly, they can relate to you. It's just a safe place," he said.

He added that it is still difficult to access resources sometimes without judgment, which is the opposite of what happens at the center.

"It's really a place for a lot of people, myself included, to breath a sigh of relieve sometimes. I don't have to feel embattled in this space," he said.